This is the agenda that I used on my wedding day. It worked out really well, except we were late from the salon (as I guess most people are). I had done a hair and make up trial, but it still took long on the day of (one piece of hair wasn’t cooperating). It was ok though because we had allowed enough time after the salon to relax at the house.

I am SO glad I had extra time built in around lunch time because my nerves were getting to me and I needed to sit down and rest and take everything in for a while.

Getting ready seriously takes about 45 minutes. Your photographer should photograph a lot of this and it takes a few minutes to get everyone situated for the shot.

Don’t be afraid to share this timeline with everyone involved in your wedding. Even the groomsmen kinda laughed at me for being so crazy but I think they really did appreciate knowing where they were supposed to be.

I think its great you had everything so detailed and it worked out for you. However, there have been several weddings I worked where they had a strict timeline, first dance at 8:14pm, cake cutting at 9:58pm, etc and not one of them stayed on schedule. It definitely helps to have a coordinator or someone to make sure you are on schedule, but allow some time for things to fall behind. Our ceremony was scheduled to start at 6:15 but we knew it wouldnt start until closer to 6:30pm so we werent upset when we started late. It seems like you built in a good time around each part of your wedding and reception to allow for extra time 🙂

That is a lot of detail. Anybody else have two different ceremony start times? (One that’s on the invitation and the website; the other being the one that the pastor and DOC know is really when it’s going to start?) 🙂 Our venue is easy to accidentally drive past so we’re building in a small buffer.

I wish we had built in a little bit later start time to the wedding. By 3 pm, we left the bridal suite to go around to the front of the church for the entrance, and about 4 couples were still arriving (out of 150 that isn’t too bad). If we had just waited like 5 minutes that would have been better.

We didn’t really follow the reception timeline at all. That was more for us to just figure out the spacing of how long we would last. Once we were there we let the DJ handle everything.

The biggest help in the timeline was the morning portion. There was no way my mom would let the ceremony start late, so I knew we had to be on time (and pictures prior were important to me). We didn’t really have a DOC keeping us on time but I made sure everyone knew the timeline so they knew when and where they were supposed to be (including photographer, etc).

I built in A LOT of buffer time. Plan on Murphys laws. Expect that things will take a lot longer than you expect and if something can go wrong it will. Again, my hair took a lot longer than expected and when I got home I needed a few minutes to sit and relax before getting ready. That added up to about an extra 30-45 minutes.

Also, keep in mind that tasks like loading into the limo, doesn’t instantly happen. You and your BMs have to move outside, one by one get on the bus, load the luggage/purses/drinks/etc, and then someone will forget something and have to run back to get it.